Endorsement? Morning Sun readers already think for themselves

“Opinionwriting is a tricky thing.”

So began a social media post by a close friend and former work colleague in the think-tank universe. His statementwas prelude to a piece endorsing Mlive’s non-endorsement of a presidential candidate in this year’s election cycle.

He continued: “To be effective, opinions should bring a unique (or at least too-little examined) fact or perspective.”

Otherwise, he explained, such an endeavor leads to redundant refrains preached to the choir froma worn hymnal.

Whew! Thus far, I’ve escaped my friend’s disapproval and opprobrium.

Not bad, considering I’ve been sweating away weekly in this fish wrap through at least two presidential election cycles. In all that time I have never and probably never will endorse a candidate.

In fact, I’ve prompted scorn from other opinion slingers in these here parts for actually suggesting one available option for all voters is to not vote at all. Hey, it’s an option, and I don’t fault anyone for availing themselves.

Or, as one reader once told me, you forfeit your right to complain if you don’t vote. Balderdash. We’re Americans, and that’s what we do: complain. We complain when our candidates lose andwe complain when our guy or gal does something we disagree with or their opponents actually do something we agreewith.

Why should it be any different if you weren’t complicit in whether those individuals won or lost in the first place? It’s still your tax dollars, after all, and you still have to abide by our nation’s laws and regulations.

As well, I trust my readers are either firmly in the tank for one candidate or another, or intelligent and independently minded enough to make up their ownminds with or without this soapbox.

My friend nailed it when he said there’s no value added to a self-ordained pundit telling their respective audience who or what to vote for, because it’s frankly lazy writing and, in general, merely plagiarized points argued more effectively in the original.

In his words: “Shouting your endorsement of a major party presidential candidate is always the epitome of horrible opinion writing.”

If you don’t have anything original or new to say, why bother saying it?

Further, why would I insult my readers’ intellects by attempting to either change their respectiveminds or offer them some sort of biased punditry for what they have confirmed already for themselves?

I was tempted to write “think for yourselves,” but most if not all of you are already doing that. We may disagree on many things, and some of those disagreements may or may not be reconciled, but it’s disrespectful to assume others might cast a presidential vote based on some outside authoritarian, fundamentalist diktat, or just another guy or gal expressing the same opinion with a couple of rhetorical flourishes added.

So pardon me if I don’t genuflect to the new religion worshiping political figureheads while vilifying their opponents as if I’m some exorcist effusively throwing holy water at some demon-possessed pubescent. Hyperbole on steroids amounts to little more than demagoguery, and these pages as well as those of our national press have bled effusively with ample evidence thereof for the past several decades.

I refuse to lend my keyboard to such nonsense as picking one candidate over another to lead us all to the Promised Land; or, identifying any candidate as some type of Star Wars’ pseudo-divine being upon whom our only hope collectively rests, according to a fellow columnist in this week’s fish wrap.

Really? Again: balderdash. It was 101 years ago W.B. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming,” the poemin which he warned of a world filled with passionate intensity wherein the best of us lack all conviction. I still gravitate toward the middle, while it still holds.

I refuse to lendmy keyboard to such nonsense as picking one candidate over another to lead us all to the Promised Land; or, identifying any candidate as some type of Star Wars’ pseudo-divine being upon whomour onlyhope collectively rests, according to a fellow columnist in thisweek’s fishwrap.